Homogenization

With both factions now having access to paladins and shaman…and now the former alliance-only racial ability “Fear Ward” being an ability for all priests…

How long before we see paid faction transfers?

All the differences between the horde and the alliance are fading. If the trend continues we’ll see racial abilities either removed or nerfed to the point that they mean so very little they are clearly no more advantageous than any other.

The Horde and the Alliance have worked together before. Animosity is growing again, and Blizzard has mentioned they want to drive the wedge deeper in WotLK, but again and again the effort is put forth by both factions to combat a greater evil.

Scryers fight alongside Aldor at the base of the Black Temple. The War Effort against the Silithid invasion was an effort worked on by both sides. Constantly do darker factions seek to embattle both the Horde and the Alliance at one time…the undead, the Qiraji, the Burning Legion…always to be pushed back by their combined might.

In fact, only Onyxia has seemed to ever have the right idea here. Working her way into the Stormwind nobility, masquerading as a human. Seeding plots and coups set to not only tear the Alliance apart, but beset them against the Horde. Her plots failed, as Thrall saw through them (as did some people in the Alliance as I understand it), but that’s what these big baddies should be doing if they want to succeed!

Anyway, got sidetracked. With the homogenization occuring between the factions, only cosmetic differences and starting zones will remain…and what’s the point of choosing a faction then?

/edit: And no, I’m not catering to you weirdos who want to play gnomes horde-side. Scram.

Continued Thoughts on the New Class

I’ve learned a couple more things about the Death Knight. I will of course be making one, but as of right now my Skywall account is maxed at 10 characters (the 9 you see to the right and then a bank character). I will have to delete one to make room for this Death Knight.

Apparently, the class will be using a more unique system for ability use. I don’t know much about how it will be chosen or how it develops, but it’s sort of like a rogue.

You have a “Rune Sword” on which you apply these Runes. You have up to six, which you can use for three different types of abilities: Unholy, Frost, and Blood. Different abilities will have different costs; one ability might cost one Unholy and one Frost, another might cost one of all three, and another might cost three Blood and nothing else.

You can set up your Rune Sword to allow for different amounts. I’m not sure if this amounts to a Death Knight’s spec, or if this is simply another form of customization, but you could make your Runesword 2 Unholy, 3 Frost, and 1 Blood. Or 2 of each for balance, or 4 Unholy/2 Frost for maximizing different ability combinations that don’t require Blood.

These runes will apparently regenerate over time, much like a rogue’s energy. I don’t have any information on the rate, but they probably won’t take long.

So, do they have talent trees? Not sure.

Apparently they will be a tank/dps hybrid, like the warrior. As well, they will apparently not need to use a shield while tanking. Conjecture would indicate then that they have a lot of armor and a lot of hit points to make up for that, like druids. The PvP implications of that are interesting.

One ability that was shown to the public at BlizzCon:

Unholy Embrace
Instant Cast.
5 min cooldown.
Target is embraced by a silhouette of darkness for 6 seconds, corrupting any healing spells and effects cast upon or currently affecting the target to cause damage for 50% of their healing potential instead of restoring health. Any damage shields cast upon or currently affecting the target will also be instantly consumed, dealing 50% of their absorption potential in damage. Once afflicted with Unholy Embrace, the target cannot be afflicted with Unholy Embrace again for 1 minute.

That is a nifty ability. Will be crazy to see in the arena.

Info taken from here on a blog run by Kaziel.

Something else interesting to note is that we will have another class utilizing the frost school of magic, and seemingly to a somewhat major degree (unlike Hunters and Shaman who only use it for a couple spells). I see potential synergy with frost mages who until now only had synergy with one another.

And this Unholy thing…Kaziel noted it would probably be a counterpart to the Holy school of magic so the Death Knight can tank reliably (it would be generally unresistable except by standard spell resist chance). As for Blood…I’m not sure what that would be involved in. It might lend itself towards a more physical aspect of combat, like Retribution for the Paladin class.

Anyway, I found the new system interesting. It is refreshing to see something truly new like this…I was expecting another mana-using class.

Also of note, however, are the lore implications. Well, sort of like lore anyway. The current idea is apparently to allow any race to be a Death Knight. Any race that can currently be a warlock this makes sense for (except maybe the orcs, I agree with Kaziel here). But a Tauren, Night Elf, or Draenei? Especially the Tauren? Maybe if the Night Elf became a Satyr first, or if the Draenei had become a Lost One. But there are no Lesser Tauren, except maybe the Grimtotem? Have they drifted that far? Wait that wouldn’t make any sense, they were the ones that didn’t want to join the Horde…

But Blizz will do what they’ll do.

Ok, so I was wrong…

…there really will be playable Death Knights.

Hmmm.

I would have hoped to see Blizzard release more than one hero class at once. As it is going to be, if you want to play a hero class, you work towards the Death Knight. There needs to be more! I know it’s hard though. Each of the classes currently in the game are all quite unique (with mages/warlocks/hunters all being the most similar), and yet there is often a lot of overlap. This of course makes group-creation much easier, but limits Blizzard in creating additional options.

But yeah, instead of “Yay, I’m one of the few Death Knights!” it will be “So, I finally got my first Death Knight, after everyone else already has.”

What kinda scares me is that I might be forced to sacrifice one of my characters to do it. Yikes, I say…should I pre-emptively start another character to replace it? Which one do I lose?

I’d almost want to make a roleplaying decision out of it…which one would make the most sense to become a Death Knight?

Zerei? Hrrm. I haven’t really developed Zerei as a character in my head, but maybe. She’s probably fickle enough that she’d lose herself to that kind of lust for power.

Luth? You might think yes, but I’m not so sure. She’s too far gone to make a choice like that. And she’s already fallen away from the sway of the Lich King, having to resist the pull back shouldn’t be too hard.

Ahz? He’s probably the best candidate. He’s insidious enough that he’d probably give it all away at his first opportunity.

The interesting thing is that they’re letting you start the Death Knight at high level, saving you from having to start at level 1. Which wouldn’t make sense anyway, where would you go for training? From a lore standpoint, how would you fit in with the rest of your race? I will have to make that decision when I see just how they are implementing this class, exactly how it is you become one.

Anyway, it’s hard to imagine another expansion so soon after the last. I still clearly remember a lot and feel nostalgic about pre-BC, haven’t even gotten used to post-BC yet, like I’m still getting my feet wet here.

I sincerenly hope though that Blizzard doesn’t do the same “leveling of the playing field” they did for this last expansion. While it was nice at first, devaluing everything from the big instances at the time seemed (and still seems) like such a waste. I don’t know of anyone still playing without the Burning Crusade expansion installed going into that content still with any degree of seriousness.

Though, any jumpstart to get us out of Karazhan is at least somewhat welcome.

I Dub Thee "Rune Knight"

Stepping off from my last post, finding a new class which does not have significant overlap with any other class would prove to be a difficult task. I took a look at each class in the game and tried to narrow down its abilities into categories and compared them to the capabilities of the other classes.

Ok, first off, there are 9 classes. What a weird number, especially when all grouping thus far deals with multiples of 5. It yearns to be made into 10. :D

Second, I believe it should be another hybrid class. Making another non-hybrid dps class would be too difficult and the abilities would have too high a chance of overlapping with others. Also, to avoid overlap with the hybrids in place, I think its three talent trees should emulate a “tank/dps/dps” or even “tank/tank/dps” format. (“Tank/dps/dps” is (c) warriors, hehe.)

Also, it needs a name. I couldn’t think of anything that would be one word, so I decided to break the one-word class naming convention mold and call it a “Rune Knight.” Based loosely on the elven spellbreakers of Warcraft III, it would be a physical damage, melee-to-short range class with extensive buff manipulation, area-effect damage, and threat management abilities. It would tank on the level of a paladin and dps on the level of a warrior, with about as much magic damage capability as an enhancement shaman. Just crazy enough to work, you say?

Its main “gimmick” (eg, paladin seals, shaman totems) would be these “runes” it can cast. I don’t know of how best to implement these without too closely mimicking shaman totems, however. I was thinking just a targetable AoE effect…but yeah, that’s just a totem that you have more freedom in placement for. Perhaps they could be (in effect) auras that you put on a target, rather than a place. They would have two different effects, one it gives to the target and another it gives to the party. Beneficial effects could work like standard buffs, lasting a decent amount of time. It could also have harmful runes it could cast, which would last a short time and have similar effects…one on the target and another on nearby allies.

These would be instant-cast and medium-range, and could have any number of effects, even those that mimick ones already in the game. Powerful runes could give a beneficial effect to one ally but weaken his group members somewhow. It would bring a whole new element to group composition in raids as you try to maximize the benefits and minimize the cost. Say a buff gave bonus attack power to the target but hampered melee hit chance for the whole party. (This is just an example, the runes could just as easily be divided between all-beneficial for friendlies and all-harmful for opponents.)

The Rune Knight would also have various threat management abilities akin to Misdirect or Blessing of Salvation. Different runes and/or abilities could be used to move threat from one target to another.

The class works best in my mind dual-wielding or going sword-and-board. They would be able to tank using a shield and various other runes that increase threat by various means, either by amplifying certain attacks or redirecting threat from other classes somehow. I think they could have a stackable ability that takes a % of threat from group members per stack and gives it to the Knight.

Would need to make the class viable as a dps class and allow it to solo well in one or two of its talent trees. “Tank/dps/dps” would probably be best, as two types of tanking would most likely be redundant.

More later.

The ideas I had for TBC

Since we all know Blizzard makes up this stuff as they go along (no offense Mr. Metzen…but it really shows), I thought I’d put forth the idea for implementing new races into The Burning Crusade. I think a new faction would have been an interesting new idea. (These were actually ideas I had way back when the expansion was first announced. I wasn’t blogging at all then, so here we go!)

First off, Blood Elves joining the Horde doesn’t make a lot of sense. I never much agreed with the Forsaken being their either, but that’s another story. They’re obviously corrupt, and I mean, who ever heard of orcs getting along with elves of any vareity in any setting? Orc vs. Elf is age-old hatred beyond what Kael perceived coming from Garithos and the Alliance.

The Draenei joining the Alliance does make a bit more sense. However, it would have fit better in my opinion if they’d never included these “new” draenei and left us with the “Broken.” Leave them as the haggard race that lived peacefully with the orcs until the Burning Legion showed up.

When Illidan fled to Outland, he had already formed a partnership with the Naga, or Azshara at any rate. They were on his side. The naga befriended Kael and his Blood Elves, who enlisted with Illidan and helped save him from Maiev. These two races discovered the draenei in the Outland and helped them fight off some of the fel orcs.

You have three races right there. This is of course before Illidan went insane and put the draenei into slavery, etc. Of course, this new faction doesn’t fit in, as it only has three races. Well, at the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, much of the focus of the game is in Northrend. It is here that Arthas did battle with the Nerubians, an intelligent spider race opposed to the Lich King, apparently descendant of the Qiraji of Silithus. It is entirely possible that they could be woven into the story as assistance to Illidan, as they both directly combat the Scourge.

Now, if Illidan never swore himself back to the Burning Legion and remained more independant, he could easily form an uneasy peace with the other races of Azeroth. But it is in this way that you could introduce 4 new races into one big new faction, which means more starting zones and the Outland for new content.

And it wouldn’t have to be all that different from the way it is now. Take out the portal from Silvermoon and Undercity, and the quests for blood elves could largely be the same. The whole naaru thing would need reworking, but the draenei might be able to have some interspacial ship thing to crash into Azeroth with. Make something up.

As for the Nerubians, we could implement Northrend finally as a playable area, setting the stage for that eventual conflict with Arthas. And, as Azshara is apparently at the bottom of the Maelstorm, the naga could start down there. There would need to be some form of rebellion within the naga in order to deal with the questing zone issue so that PC naga could fight all the established NPC naga. The Burning Legion could hold sway over many of them, perhaps…allowing places like Coilskar Point in the Outland to remain as they are as places for PCs to run around and kill things.

Also, leave the Paladins to the Alliance and the Shaman to the Horde. Let’s give the new faction (Illidari works for me) a new melee-centric debuffing class, with some unique threat-management skills. I want to say the Spellbreaker…but I don’t know if that’s “good” enough. For once thing, where paladin and shaman are their own words, spellbreaker is an agent noun formed by two other words. While I like the German language and its penchant for word formation via glue, I don’t like it here. I’m not sure the spellbreaker class is unique enough either. More on that in another post perhaps.

The real problem would be finding a way to link all of the starting zones together somehow. As well, the current Battlegrounds system would definitely need some work, as the new faction has no lore in any of the current BGs. Basically, implementing the new faction would interrupt the seamlessness that the game currently has. Everything new would feel contrived without significant revamping of zones, quests, etc.

But then, like everything else I post, it’s just an idea. And one a bit late at that. :)

Zul’Aman on the Horizon

Hmmm…

You know, given the current nonsense that is Karazhan, I have to admit I was skeptical about Blizzard’s decision to add more 10-man content. But Zul’Aman, set to be released with the next patch, does sound promising. It appears to be a 10-man raid instance that can be completed in one night.

Quality of the rewards aside, this sounds great. This will be the new UBRS. Or at least I hope so.

I don’t know much about it, but I think I read that there will be four main bosses, each of which is some combination of troll and an animal. Sounds a bit like ZG, no? Of course, there’s no evil blood god behind all of these workings, it’s just the trolls this time.

At any rate, this sounds very appealing. As well, Blizzard is supposedly adding built-in voice chat support to the game as well as a built-in guild bank feature. Voice chat I can live without, Ventrilo works…but the guild bank thing could be interesting. Like other features Blizzard has added to the game though, it may be something of a let-down, but time will tell.

Warrior Talents: Thematics and Lore

This will probably be an introduction to a series of posts, depending on how much I think of to write and given that it’s almost time to go home for the day. I have some ideas for the arms and fury trees. I haven’t done a lot in the prot tree myself, but I don’t hear many complaints about it regardless.

Mostly, I’m ok with the trees as they are. However, I have some issues with how the trees are structured. Nothing major, mind you, as their current state is probably all resultant from balance concerns.

Thinking about the names of the trees and the talents within, we have the arms tree and the fury tree. If I were to separate the two ways in which a warrior could attack her enemies into two trees and name them as such, I would come to the following main conclusions.

The arms tree is about technique and the weapon you wield. The whole “weapon as an extension of your body” would be most true to an arms warrior. As such, talents such as deflection, the weapon masteries, and that talent that provides disarm resistance (I can’t recall the name and don’t feel like looking it up right now) all make sense here. Even the more “mystical” talents such as iron will and second wind have their places in such a tree, as they exemplify a warrior’s ability to remain focused on the fight.

The fury tree would seem to embody a different kind of warrior. Where the arms warrior would be a strong fighter and able combatant (perhaps even honorable), the fury warrior would be reckless and relentless, focused on destruction. Unbridled wrath, bloodthirst, and flurry work well in such a tree.

Based on the above, there are certain aspects of both trees that seem out of place. The apex of the arms tree, for instance, “Endless Rage.” The very definition of the word rage would not seem to lend itself to focused, tactical combat. As well, “Precision”, in the fury tree. While precision may certainly be of use to a warrior, it doesn’t necessarily make sense for it to be a priority for a warrior focused less on tactics and more on simple destruction.

Now, I know these talents are where they are for good reasons. Arms warriors, wielding big, slow two-handed weapons, don’t necessarily generate a lot of rage, and so allowing them to generate more per hit is a boon to them. Likewise, dual-wielding, as many fury warriors do, means a pretty serious deficit in their chance to hit their opponent, and so precision is of great use to them.

Bringing the protection tree into the mix, I would say that maybe the protection-based warrior is Blizzard’s answer to my thoughts on the arms warrior. A tactics-based combatant, an honorable fighter of sorts whose duty it is to protect those in his charge. In fact, with the two warrior definitions I have come up with above, what does that make the protection warrior? Perhaps there just aren’t enough archetypes to spread the warrior idea among three separate talent trees, and that is why the hodgepodge that exists is there. But maybe there could be a difference between a tactical fighter and an honorable protector.